Responding to the barriers in climate adaptation planning among transport systems: Insights from the case of the port of Montreal

Abstract

With the accelerating pace of climate change, there has been no scarcity of research, in recent years, that assess climate risks and cost-effectiveness of adaptation measures in the transport sector. Nevertheless, existing literature associated with adaptation planning for climate change is still at an embryonic stage with little attention on certain potential dilemmas. Understanding such, this paper focuses on the question of how to respond to the barriers in climate adaptation planning in transport systems. This is achieved mainly through reviewing the literature in transport adaptation to climate change impacts to summarize eights conditions (potential barriers) that the shortage of those might lead to the failure of climate adaptation planning. Next, those conditions are examined by a historical case study between 2014 and 2015 on the Canadian port of Montreal's experience in tackling the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River's dropping water level. The findings, via semi-structured interviews with affiliated senior experts, closely mirror the enablers influencing the success of a climate adaptation plan, revealing the impediments and opportunities in the existing and future planning. It offers constructive recommendations on how to improve the port of Montreal’s, and ports and transport infrastructures in general, process and practice of adaptation planning. The study strives to bridge the research gaps and provide decision-makers with a novel thinking pattern and workable recommendations from design, implementation to the reconstruction of adaptation planning and facilitate a paradigm shift in broader sustainable transport management.

Keywords:

• Adaptation planning
• barriers
• climate change
• dropping water level
• St. Lawrence River
• the port of Montreal

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their very helpful comments and suggestions. This research was financially supported the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFE0201200). This work was also supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant: 71671110) and the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant: 18ZDA052). Adolf K.Y. Ng would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC). The authors are also grateful for the support of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation (Grant: G00111), a charity that helps to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement, and the application of research, and CCAPPTIA (ccapptia.com).

Notes

1 For the details on the major interviews questions, see the Appendix.

2 Interviewee 2.

3 Interviewee 3.

4 Interviewee 2; Interviewee 3.

5 Interviewee 2; Interviewee 3.

6 Interviewee 2.

7 "Panamax" refers to definition before the expansion of the Panamax Canal in 2014.

8 Interviewee 4.

9 Interviewee 1; Interviewee 2; Interviewee 3; Interviewee 4.

10 As far as the authors know, there still lacks of a comprehensive system in climate adaptation in port of Montreal. Hence, this statement is valid in the year 2021.

11 Interviewee 4.

12 Interviewee 5.

13 Interviewee 4.

14 As far as the authors know, the challenge has not been fully addressed yet today.

15 Interviewee 3.

16 Interviewee 3.